Steven Havill: Scavengers

“She wouldn’t get a flu shot. That’s what your husband said.”

“Nope. She wouldn’t. Last fall when we were still up in Minnesota, Francis even threatened to stick her with the shot while she was asleep. That didn’t work, either. Stubborn to the end.”

Perrone chuckled. “Let’s see what trouble this one got into,” he said, and ambled toward the corpse. He stood with his hands still in his pockets, looking down at the body. “He sure as hell is dead,” he said. Deputy Collins circled around to the other side and bent down, reaching toward the pocket of the victim’s jacket. Perrone held up a hand. “Not yet, Dennis. Nothing gets moved yet.”

Collins took a deep breath of exasperation, and Perrone added, “Once the body is disturbed, that’s it. You never get a second chance.”

“I know,” Collins said, the reply an automatic reflex rather than the truth. “I was just going to check for some identification.” Estelle watched him closely to make sure that his hands didn’t stray, glad that it had been the formidable Perrone who’d spoken up. Collins was scheduled to attend the next session of the law enforcement academy in Santa Fe. Until then, he was an uncertified gopher-spending his time delivering unglamorous civil paperwork and champing at the bit.

“That can wait,” Perrone replied. For the next twenty minutes, they worked the area without touching the body. It was Perrone who froze in his tracks, looking down.

“And what’s this,” he said, beckoning Estelle. He knelt and pointed with his chrome pen. “Good-sized chunk of skullcap, is what I’d guess,” he said. He turned and regarded the corpse, fifteen feet to the east. “So we know one thing,” he added as Estelle silently examined the fragment of bone. “He wasn’t killed somewhere else and dragged here. My first guess is that he was shot, and dropped in his tracks. Either this flew over here, or some critter toyed with it for a while, cleaning off all the good stuff.”

“Gross,” Linda Real said again. Collins looked expectantly at Estelle, as if waiting for her to pronounce some profundity that would lead directly to someone’s arrest. The undersheriff remained silent, after a minute handing the bagged skull fragment to Collins for labeling.

“What do you want me to put on here?” he asked.

“Just fill in the blanks, Dennis,” Estelle said. “Date, time, location. Use ‘skull fragment’ for description.”

Linda continued with an array of cameras, photographing in color, black-and-white, and finally with video-close-up and panorama. Jackie Taber methodically collected samples of the stained gravel under the man’s head and shoulders and passed them to Collins, whose printing on the evidence bag labels turned out to be so neat and precise that at first glance the lettering looked as if it came from a word processor.

Perrone’s interest focused on the head wound, but he was noncommittal. “Interesting,” he allowed. “Maybe gunshot, maybe more than that. Really interesting.”

He reached out and lifted the corners of the black jacket. The V-necked white T-shirt was bloodstained near the collar but otherwise showed no evidence of intrusion. “Huh,” the physician said. “I don’t see evidence of any other wounds other than what I’d expect from the ravens. Let’s roll him over.”

Estelle nodded. Linda crouched off to one side, the video camera watching the process.

Deputy Collins put a hand on the man’s shoulder while Perrone lifted at the hip. With the body rolled just far enough that it rested on its side, Perrone stopped, frowning. The small of the victim’s back had been resting on a football-size rock, the sharp corners of the limestone digging into the skin where the T-shirt was hiked up.

“Huh,” Perrone murmured.

Clare Parker, one of the EMTs who had been standing patiently to one side, stepped forward and added his leverage so that Perrone could free his hands.

“Linda,” Perrone said, “Get me a picture of this, will you? A still, not video.” He crouched, head close to the earth. When Linda joined him, he pointed with the eraser end of a pencil. “I want this area right here. It looks like the rock caught him on the back when he fell.” Collins’ face was pale, but he and Parker held the body in place as Linda Real fussed with her light meter.

“When was the last moisture out here?” Perrone asked.

“Three weeks, at least.”

He pushed his glasses back up his long, slender nose and turned his attention again to the wrecked face. “The ravens and a coyote or two could account for most of the soft tissue damage to the face and neck in just a day or two. But that’s after the body is ripe enough to attract their attention. With the condition of the rest of the body, my guess is that he hasn’t been here too long. I’m not talking months. Two weeks, three maybe. If a vehicle left tracks, they’d still be here.” He drew a pair of surgical gloves from his pocket and snapped them on. Collins looked eastward, his face paling a shade or two, as the physician gently probed around what was left of the victim’s lower face.

“His jaw’s been pulverized,” Perrone said. “I’m guessing somebody really pounded on him. Several really hard, sharp blows.” He held up a splinter of white. “This is part of a healthy tooth, Estelle. He’s been hit so hard that his teeth and jaw bones are just splinters. Nothing much on the ground, though, except blood. So he was lying pretty still when they worked him over.”

He gestured with his right hand. “Let him go on over.” Collins let out a sigh of relief as he released his hold on the corpse and stood up. “Now you need to check his pockets,” Perrone added.

The search didn’t take long.

“No wallet, no money, no nothing,” the deputy said. “Not even an inspection label.” He looked up, shaking his head. “Black hair, though. Small stature. I’ll bet he’s Mexican. He got himself crosswise with somebody.”

Alan Perrone looked up at Collins and grinned. “Black hair and small stature sure narrows it down, doesn’t it?”

“Well, it’s just most likely, is all,” the deputy said. “Out here, I mean. The border’s just a few miles south of here.” He stood up, hands on his hips, and turned his attention ninety degrees to the west. “The MacInernys’ is closest, though,” he said. When he noticed that the undersheriff was looking at him with interest, he added, “I mean, that’s a place to start, wouldn’t it be? The closest, most obvious place?”

“Yes, it is,” Estelle agreed. “While Jackie finishes up here, I’d like you to go have a chat with them. They should be home on a Sunday morning. See if they remember anything unusual in the past few weeks. Get back with Jackie as soon as you find out.” Almost as an afterthought, she added, “And Dennis, they don’t need to know the specifics of any of this.”

“You think we ought to tip our hand with them?” Collins asked. “I mean, if they’re involved somehow…”

“That’s unlikely,” Estelle said.

“I mean, it could be someone who works for the MacInernys.”

“Think about that when you’re talking to them,” Estelle said. “Use a light touch, as an old friend of mine likes to say.”

Perrone stood up and stripped off the rubber gloves. “There’s enough blood soaked into the ground or dried on the rocks to be consistent with this kind of injury, but that’s always kind of a puzzle. It’s just hard to tell. Although with this kind of head wound…” He frowned and glanced at Estelle. “Could have happened any number of ways, I suppose.”

“That brings us back to the problem of vehicle tracks,” Deputy Taber said. “Something has to show.” She turned at the waist, scanning the prairie.